Fortunes of F-22 now linked to hate crimes measure
The fortunes of the F-22 have now been formally linked to hate crimes legislation, a pairing that’s giving heartburn to all kinds of U.S. senators, especially two from Georgia.
Late last night, the Senate voted to attach the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act to the $680 million defense bill. The hate crimes measure would extend greater federal protection to people attacked because of their gender or sexual orientation.
This from the Associated Press:
“The Senate made a strong statement this evening that hate crimes have no place in America,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said….
The House in April approved a similar bill and President Barack Obama has urged Congress to send him hate crimes legislation, presenting the best scenario for the measure to become law since Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., first introduced it more than a decade ago.
And yet, President Barack Obama has promised — again and again — to veto the bill because, as of now, it contains increased funding for the Marietta-built F-22 Raptor.
The pairing has gay and lesbians worried. Obama has sent the message that, in a contest, he will choose to veto the extra F-22 spending — even at the costs of the hate crimes legislation. The Advocate, a national news site aimed at gay readers, includes this quote from Shin Inouye, the White House director of specialty media:
“The President has long supported the hate crimes bill and gave his personal commitment to Judy Shepard that we will enact an inclusive bill,” said Shin Inouye, referring to Shepard’s Oval Office visit with the president earlier this year.
“Unfortunately, the President will have to veto the Defense Authorization bill if it includes wasteful spending for additional F-22s. The collective judgment of the Service Chiefs and Secretaries of the military departments is that the current program is sufficient to meet operational requirements. A Presidential veto would not indicate any change in President Obama’s commitment to seeing the hate crimes bill enacted.”
But U.S. Sens. Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson — Chambliss in particular has been on the point in the effort to boost spending on the stealth fighter — are equally uncomfortable.
If they beat the attempt by Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat, and John McCain, the Arizona Republican, to remove the increased F-22 spending on Monday, will Chambliss and Isakson be willing to record votes in favor of the hate crimes legislation?
And would the base of their Georgia Republican constituency agree that the penny is worth the whistle? “That’s the question,” admitted one of their staffers.
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23 comments Add your comment
Keith
July 17th, 2009
1:05 pm
How is hate crimes germane to defense spending? Rules need to be changed so that unrealted measures cannot be placed in the same bill.
Ruby-Sachs: Obama May Veto Hate Crimes Bill | Gay News Blog | 365gay.com
July 17th, 2009
1:44 pm
[...] it was confirmed that the Senate’s version of the Matthew Shepard Act is linked to increased funding for the [...]
Stan
July 17th, 2009
2:12 pm
Honest question. How is “hate crimes law” equal treatment under the law? I just don’t get it.
Bo Chambliss Lobbyist
July 17th, 2009
2:15 pm
If the gays want this why don’t they send a check? With Saxby it’s Lobbyist 1st.
Matt
July 17th, 2009
2:19 pm
I guess I am against the F-22.
Wayne
July 17th, 2009
2:31 pm
I don’t like linking disparate bills like this. I am however in favor of both funding the F-22 and for passing the hate crimes bill. It takes a long time to develop such a weapon as the F-22 and we need it to replace our aging inventory. To Stan: Equal protection under the law means that the hate crimes law would apply equally to anyone and everyone who commits a such a crime. It does not mean we must protect everyone who would act out on hateful motives. We have long recognized the need to give extra protection to groups especially vulnerable or who have a history of being persecuted, such as racial minorities, and we enact special enhancements, such as child pornography laws much more onerous than pornography involving only adults.
Keith
July 17th, 2009
2:32 pm
Oh Lawdy! Mr. Obama gonna save us from them mean ol’ whiteys that wants to be chaining us to the bumper of they old pick’em up trucks and be dragging us down the road. Happy days I tell ya…
Just Watching
July 17th, 2009
2:34 pm
Let me try this again.About how is the hate crimes bill germane to defense spending?? It is not. But it’s the only way the weirdo’s and their lapdogs in congress can get such drivel as this bill(protecting cross dressers and pedophiles among other groups) to pass.By attaching it to something important,such as the defense of OUR country,they hope the ignorant masses (meaning US) will not notice it and therefore not complain or question how a man can say “I feel feminine today,so I can use the Ladies Room.” If he rapes or molests a woman or child while in the rest room,he will be protected because of his sexual deviation!!!!! NO,I DON’T LIKE IT!!!!
BravesFan79
July 17th, 2009
2:42 pm
Hate crimes legislation is actually being forced upon us (just like socialism) by the E.U. Did you know in Europe if if you can anything negative about the Jews, or deny #’s of the Holocaust, you can be charged with a hate crime and serious prison time?
Did you know that if you speak out on the Muslim gang rape (of white girls) epidemic facing Europe you can be faced with a hate crime?
Whats NOT a hate crime according to them? Anything where the perp is a person of color, and the victim is white!
Stan
July 17th, 2009
2:52 pm
Wayne,
Thanks for the response. I understand what you are saying I just have a serious issue with criminalizing “thought” which is how I view hate crimes. They become a hate crime due to what the offender is thinking as the crime is taking place. Which to me gets dangerously close to violating the first ammendment.
Now don’t get me wrong, anyone that kills/injurs/harms anyone should punished and punished hard. I just think we are getting to the point of really pushing crossing the line with some current laws and laws that are being pushed.
Matt
July 17th, 2009
3:01 pm
More F-22 spending means less chance of hate crime laws so I am for the F-22. Sorry about the waffle…
gtfan1951
July 17th, 2009
3:03 pm
How can we stop this liberal congress from taking all of our rights as U.S. Cit. This is crazy. Maybe we should join Vermont and leave the union again.
BravesFan79
July 17th, 2009
3:43 pm
Wayne: If Hate crime laws would apply to Everyone…. then how come the Rape/Tourture and Murder of the Univ of Tennessee couple was not charged as a “Hate Crime”!?? Even tho Tenn has hate crime laws already? Just google Channon Christenson.
Matt
July 17th, 2009
3:47 pm
In the article by Ruby-Sachs linked to above, she calls conservative senators “clever” for putting Obama in a tough position of having to veto hate crime legislation. Galloway’s article says that Chambliss & Isakson are “uncomfortable” for their support of the F-22 program. So which is it? Are they clever or are they uncomfortable? Uncomfortably clever? I don’t think so.
Copyleft
July 17th, 2009
3:59 pm
This illustrates the weirdness of letting legislators attach bills together as “riders” in a bizarre patchwork.
“If you want veterans’ benefits, you have to support an interactive corn museum!”
“Want to fund the war for another three months? Then I get a resolution declaring National Elbow Awareness Week!”
“Repairing a bridge? Not until we agree to sell the Chrysler Building for scrap metal first!”
Every bill really needs to stand or fall on its own merits. And that’s a long-standing, bipartisan problem.
Woe to the Republic 2: F-22 and Hate Crimes « Gray3’s Thirdsphere
July 17th, 2009
5:19 pm
[...] Crimes Prevention Act) to assist in protecting homosexuals has been egregiously added as part of a defense bill funding the F-22. The Matthew Shepard Act in and of itself is worthy, so why potentially hold military funding [...]
MBW
July 17th, 2009
7:27 pm
Hilarious. They know that no Republican can ever say no to a bunch of military pork. That’s one way to get stuff done with Republicans….just attach it to a military spending bill.
MBW
July 17th, 2009
7:28 pm
So, will these Republicans now vote against funding our troops? How unpatriotic…
Bigdog
July 18th, 2009
10:31 am
Protecting the country commes first. If we do not protect the country then passing hate crime laws will be useless. Is it wrong to go out gay bashing, of course, but Iran with a nuke is far more inportant.
WP
July 18th, 2009
10:40 am
F-22 FIGHTER jets have posed problems from the start. They were designed in the 1980s to combat a force of advanced Soviet fighter jets that never materialized. Decades of testing and tweaking have revealed fundamental flaws in their material and structure. They cost more than $44,000 for each hour they spend in the air — more than their predecessor, the F-15. They have never flown over Iraq or Afghanistan. The Defense Department has said it wants to cap the force at 187 and focus on next-generation F-35s instead.
So why is Congress still trying to appropriate $1.75 billion to build more of them?
Almost from its conception, the F-22 has been “too big to fail.” With subcontractors in more than 40 states and jobs in many congressional districts that depend on their continued production, even when the defense secretary has made clear that he would like to end the program, funding for F-22s still turns up in the annual defense authorization bill. In the Senate, an additional $1.75 billion for more F-22s was put into the Armed Services Committee markup of the bill, and in the House, funding for 12 additional jets has already passed.
President Obama has made his position clear: If funding for these unwanted F-22 fighter jets is included in the Defense Authorization Act, he will veto the bill. As Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has repeatedly pointed out, this money isn’t appearing out of thin air. It is being carved away from programs that are necessary and used to fund something the department has explicitly said it does not want or need. As Mr. Gates put it, “A dollar for something we don’t need is a dollar taken away from something we do need.”
On this Mr. Obama and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) agree; Mr. McCain and Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), Armed Services Committee chairman, co-sponsored an amendment that would remove the additional F-22 funding from the Senate bill.
Doing so would not shortchange America’s military structure or industrial complex. Mr. Obama is committed to preserving American air superiority. But preserving air superiority does not mean continuing to fund a project that shows few signs that it is aiding this cause at all. And the same bill that takes funding from needed programs to fund F-22s would also impede production on the Defense Department’s preferred aircraft, the F-35; it is a jet that can be used across the branches of the armed forces and whose design is more than 10 years ahead of the F-22s.
Saving jobs is a laudable goal. But continuing to support such a flawed project simply because it preserves jobs is self-defeating.
joe
July 18th, 2009
8:33 pm
Under this new hate crime law, if a homosexual were to “expose himself” to say my wife and she hit him with her purse, my wife would be sentenced to a mandatory minimum sentence in federal prison but the “exposer” would be charged with a misdemeanor. Think on that.
MBW
July 18th, 2009
9:25 pm
Joe– That’s a complete misunderstanding of what a hate crime is. A hate crime is a crime that is committed as a result of a bias toward an entire group of people and is usually determined by motive and by the nature of the crime.
Hitting someone with a purse because he/she exposes him or herself to you is not a hate crime. Defending yourself from a lewd act is not a hate crime.
Hate crimes are serious and are essentially a form of terrorism against a group of people.
Please stop perpetuating the myth that any kind of crime against a minority is a hate crime. It’s not true.
jaysays
July 20th, 2009
11:35 am
I cannot believe – wait, I take that back – I can believe how uninformed people are about hate crimes legislation. For example, joe, your wife would not be charged with a hate crime because she did not attack the exposing party with the intent of “sending a message” to a group – she hit him for committing a crime against her.
This law does not protect people who are committing a crime. That’s absurd. Pedophilia is a crime – there is no consent from one party (the child). It is not an “orientation” under the law.
As to Channon Christenson and Chris Newsome’s murders – were they “hate crimes?” Were they attacked solely because they were white and to send a message to them that whites aren’t wanted in that neighborhood? I see no reports indicating that after a cursory review. If so, Tennessee state authorities did not properly investigate the crime. Federal investigators, under the new hate crimes legislation (AND the one that has existed for ages since the crime is allegedly race based) would apply. The federal government could step in and take assist or take over the investigation as they would have jurisdiction by way of Bias Crime Legislation. If there’s an indication of it, contact your senators – tell them to send help *IT’S THE LAW*